to call it to mind, yet we may want to keep it in mind for the future and who sees not how serviceable the sacramental solemnity may be for that very purpose? Add to this, that it is particularly said with respect to the Passover, "Thou shalt sacrifice the passover, &c. that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest out of "Egypt, all the days of thy life "." Which is exactly parallel, so far, to the remembrance appointed in the Eucharist. How trifling would it be to urge, that the Israelites were supposed to remember the day before their coming to the Passover, and therefore could have no need to refresh their memories by coming; or to urge, that because they ought always to bear it in mind, therefore it could not be one end or use of the Passover, to remind them of it, or to keep it in remembrance all their days.

:

One may judge from hence, that Socinus's pretended reasons against the notion of remembrance were mere shuffle and pretence, carrying more of art and colouring in them, than of truth or sincerity: he had a turn to serve in favour of an hypothesis, and that was all. The turn was this he had a mind to make the avάuvois (which is one end, or use, or part of the Sacrament) to be the whole of the Sacrament, its whole nature and essence, as I before hinted, and to interpret the words, "this is my body" and "this my blood," to mean, this bread and wine, or rather this action, is an áváμvnois, a commemoration, and nothing more. He could not pretend to say, that this material thing, or this external action, is a remembrance, (which denotes an internal perception,) and therefore he substitutes commemoration in its stead, an outward act, an external service, and then resolves the whole of the Sacrament into that, confounding the end or use of the thing with the thing itself. This was his fetch; and so he hoped to be rid at once of all supposed present graces or benefits accruing to worthy receivers, making the sign and thing signified to be all one, and indeed to be sign only.

"Deut. xvi, 2, 3.

However, though Socinus had no good views in interpreting ȧváμmois by commemoration, and was undoubtedly wrong in excluding remembrance; yet setting aside his foreign fancies, it is very right to interpret the word by commemoration; but so as to include both an inward remembrance of benefits, and an outward celebration of the same, together with devout praises and thanksgivings to Christ our Lord for them, and to all the three Persons of the ever blessed Trinity. It is scarce possible for a considerate devout mind to stop short in a bare remembrance, (though remembrance is always supposed, and is by this sacred solemnity reinforced,) but it will of course break out into thankful praises and adorations. We accept therefore of what Socinus and his brethren so much contend for, that the Greek ávάumos, in this case, does amount to a commemoration, and is better rendered by that word than by remembrance; because the word will bear it, and because the circumstances show that remembrance alone, without commemoration superadded, is short of the idea intended by it.

I may further note, though it is but the natural and obvious consequence of what I have before said, that this commemoration must be understood in as high and as full a sense, as the remembrance spoken of above: we must commemorate our Lord in a manner suitable to his Divine nature and dignity, and according to what he is by the Scripture accounts. We must commemorate him as God, purchasing the Church with his own blood. We must commemorate his passion as St. Paul has done, and in like words with these; "Who, being in the form of God, "thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made "himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form "of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men and "being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, "and became obedient unto death, even the death of the

• Acts xx. 28. For the reading of the text, see Mill. in loc. and Pearson on the Creed, p. 129. and Vitringa, Observ. Sacr. tom. i. p. 213. and Pfaffius de Var. Lect. p. 161.

"cross P." In another place, the same Apostle, speaking of the "redemption by the blood" of Christ, and of his making "peace through the blood of the cross," closes one, and ushers in the other, with a large account of the supereminent dignity of his Person, as "born before the "creation;” adding, that "all things were created by "him, and for him, and by him consist 9." This is the right way of celebrating or commemorating his passion, as it is declaring the infinite value of it. To speak of him only as man, or as a creature, though otherwise in a devout way, is not honouring, but dishonouring him and his sufferings; is not commemorating, but blaspheming his name. St. Paul, in another place, going to speak of our Lord's passion, introduces it with a previous description of his personal dignity: "appointed heir of all things, by "whom also he made the worlds; who being the bright"ness of his glory, and the express image of his Person, "and upholding all things by the word of his power, "when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on "the right hand of the majesty on high." But as remarkable a passage as any, is that of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the Apostle, to enhance the value of Christ's sufferings, expresses himself thus: "If the blood "of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprink"ling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh : "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through "the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,

purge your conscience from dead works to serve the 66 living Gods?" By eternal Spirit, I understand Christ's Divine nature, as the most judicious interpreters dot: and so from hence it is plain how the merit of Christ's sufferings rises in proportion to the dignity of the Person; and

P Phil. ii. 6, 7, 8. See my fifth Sermon, vol. ii. Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 209. and Third Defence, vol. iv. p. 70.

a Coloss. i. 14-20. Compare my Sermons, vol. ii. p. 34, &c. 90, &c.

r Heb. i. 2, 3.

s Heb. ix. 13, 14.

* See Bull. Opp. p. 19. and Wolfius in loc.

it is the Divinity that stamps the value upon the suffering humanity. And hence also it is that St. John so emphatically observes, that it is the blood of Jesus Christ his Son (that Son whom the Apostle every where describes under the most lofty characters, as particularly John i.) which "cleanseth us from all sin"." Such is the Scripture way of commemorating our Lord and his passion, and such the way of all the ancient churches of God: be this our pattern, as it ought to be, for our commemorations in the holy Communion.

III. But I observed, that there was a third or a fourth rendering of the same words, εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν : for a memorial of me; or, for my memorial, which is more strictly literal. This rendering is not much different from the two former, but contains and includes both for a memorial supposes and takes in both a remembrance and a commemoration. Whether it superadds any thing to them, and makes the idea still larger or fuller, is the question. If it carries in it any tacit allusion to the sacrificial memorials of the Old Testament, it may then be conceived to add to the idea of commemoration the idea of acceptable and well pleasing, viz. to Almighty God. I build not upon ávάuvos being twice used in the Septuagint as the name for a sacrificial memorial; for the usual sense of the word, in the same Septuagint, is different, having no relation to sacrifice: but thus far may be justly pleaded, from the nature and reason of the thing, that the service of the Eucharist (the most proper part of evangelical worship, and most solemn religious act of the Christian Church) must be understood to ascend up " for a memorial before "God," in as strict a sense, at least, as Cornelius's alms and prayers were said so to do y; or as the " prayers of "the saints" go up as sweet odours, mystical incense2,

u 1 John i. 7.

x Levit. xxiv. 7. Numb. x. 21.

y Acts x. 4.

z Rev. v. 8. viii. 3, 4. Psalm cxli. 2. Compare Malach. i. 11. Vid. Vitringa, in Apocalyps. p. 214, &c. 333, &c. Dodwell, Incensing no Apostolical Tradition, p. 36, 37, 38.

before God. Indeed, the incense and sacrificial memorials of the Old Testament were mostly typical of evangelical worship or Christian services, and were acceptable to God under that view; and therefore it cannot be doubted but the true rational incense, viz. Gospel services, rightly performed, (and among these more especially the Eucharistical service,) are the acceptable memorials in God's sight. Whether there was any such allusion intended in the name áváμvois, when our Lord recommended the observance of the Eucharist as his memorial, cannot be certainly determined, since the name might carry in it such an allusion, or might be without it: but as to the thing, that such worship rightly performed has the force and value of any memorial elsewhere mentioned in Scripture (sacrificial or other) cannot be doubted; and the rest is not worth disputing, or would make too large a digression in this place.

Before I dismiss the word avάumos, it may not be improper to note, that it occurs but once more in the New Testament, where St. Paul speaks of the "commemora"tion of sins "," made once a year, under the Old Testament, on the great day of expiation; when the High Priest was to "confess all the iniquities of the children of Israel, "and all their transgressions in all their sins b." There was ἀνάμνησις ἁμαρτιῶν, commemoration of sins : but under the Gospel it is happily changed into ἀνάμνησις τοῦ Χρισοῦ, commemoration of Christ. There sins were remembered; here forgiveness of sins: a remarkable privilege of the Gospel economy above the legal. Not but that there was forgiveness also under the Old Testament, legal and external forgiveness by the law, and mystical forgiveness under the law, by virtue of the sacrifice of Christ foreordained, and fore-shadowed: but under the Gospel, forgiveness is clearly and without a figure declared, and for all sins repented of; and there is no remembrance of them

• Ανάμνησις ἁμαρτιῶν κατ' ἐνιαυτόν. Heb. x. 3.

b Vid. Levit. xvi. 21.